Material possessions and experiential purchases for happiness By analyzing numerous studies and experiments of consumer behavior researchers, it aims to explain the author's main hypothesis: happiness derived from experiences is greater than happiness obtained through material possessions. Furthermore, the conversational value of experiential purchases is higher than that of material purchases and this is one of the reasons why individuals derive more hedonic benefits from their experiences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIntroductionOur lives are filled with decisions we must make to make our own lives “better” on our own terms. One of the most complex and difficult decisions is how to spend our money. How much to save each month and how much to spend on our not-so-basic needs like a new stereo. This has been one of the biggest dichotomies in people's daily lives. There is a desire to be happier that underlies every decision individuals make. People's lives can be enriched by redirecting spending from things that provide fleeting joy to those that make a more substantial and lasting contribution to well-being (Gilovich & Kumar & Jampol, 2014). When considering the transformation of consumers through purchasing (Mick 2006), it makes sense to consider not only what leads to consumer downfall (debt, addiction, etc.), but also what leads to a particularly happy (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). In this article, we will explore the world of expenses and their nature. Because there are other decisions to make even after overcoming the biggest dichotomy. Yes, you will spend money. As Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) say, would you rather “do” something with that money, like go on a ski trip, or “have” something or things like shiny new jewelry or t-shirts? of creators. I will investigate more deeply what underlies people's decisions regarding material possessions and experiences. Previous studies show that happiness derived from experiences is greater than happiness obtained through material possessions. This leads us to examine the possible incentives that dominate these results. One of the reasons most put forward according to researchers is the value of the positive social impact generated by a positive experience. As Bastos and Brucks (2017) report, conversations about experiences are thought to be more likely to promote social connections. In other words, a trip to the Himalayas or a famous Broadway show is more worth telling others about than a new piece of Italian furniture and will project a positive social image. After discussing previous research on the role of spending in the search for happiness, we will analyze the two types of purchases. Finally, we can draw attention to the differential utility of stories derived from purchases. Link between material possessions and happiness According to consumer behavior researchers, there are two types of goods for which consumers project different gains from obtaining them. By acquiring hedonic goods, consumers aim for pleasure. However, utilitarian goods are those acquired with the intention of achieving practical purposes. THEConsumer choices are motivated by utilitarian and hedonic considerations. Consumers choosing a new automobile, for example, may care about utilitarian attributes (e.g., gas mileage) as well as hedonic attributes (e.g., sporty design) (Dhar and Wertenboch, 2000). According to Strahilevitz and Myers (1998), hedonic and pleasure-oriented consumption is primarily driven by the desire for sensual pleasure, fantasy, and pleasure (e.g., a week in the Bahamas). In Western culture, these products are often described as “frivolous” or “decadent”. Utilitarian and targeted consumption is motivated mainly by the desire to meet a fundamental need or to accomplish a functional task (e.g.: consuming a bottle of dishwashing liquid or a box of trash bags). In Western culture, these products are often referred to as “convenient” or “necessary.” This is one of the famous dichotomies that inspired Van Boven and Gilovich in 2003 to take a deeper look at shopping happiness. The second distinction concerned consumer motivations. Extrinsic goals, which “depend on the contingent reactions of others,” and intrinsic goals, express “desires consistent with humans’ natural self-actualizing and growth tendencies” (Kasser and Ryan, 1996, p. 280). Of course, these distinctions are not precise because it is still difficult to identify consumer goods and goals as hedonic or utilitarian and extrinsic or intrinsic. However, they made sense and proved useful to consumer behavior researchers. Experiential Possessions vs. Material Possessions There has been an ongoing debate around discretionary income and where and how to spend it. From an early age, philosophers, economists and psychologists have expressed their opinions on this issue. Aristotle (4th century BC) observed that “…men imagine that external goods are the cause of happiness” but asserted that “leisure in itself gives pleasure, happiness and enjoyment in life” (trans. 1996, pp. 185 and 197). As we move closer to the present day, with Hume (1737/1975) and Scitovsky (1976) and Frank (1985), the feeling is that individuals will be happier if they spend their money on experiences (e.g., theater, concerts, and vacations) as opposed to material purchases (e.g., luxury cars, larger homes, and gadgets) (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). They all said that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases. But until Van Boven and Gilovich's research in 2003, there was no empirical test of this so-called experiment recommendation made by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman in 2009. According to Van Boven and Gilovich, it was difficult to distinguish clearly the purchases considered. as experiential and who as material. Almost everyone considers a hike in the Himalayas an experience and a new Patek-Phillipe watch a possession. But what about a flat-screen television or an automobile? Are these goods or vehicles for experiences? (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Using their experiences and the usefulness of the general distinction, they indicated that experiential purchases are those made with the primary intention of gaining a life experience: an event or series of events that the 'we live. Material purchases are those made with the primary intention of acquiring a material good: a tangible object that is kept in one's possession. Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) claimed that materialistic people tend to report lower subjective well-being than non-materialistic people.materialists. People who strongly agree with statements such as "Some of the most important achievements in life include acquiring material goods" and "Buying things give me a lot of pleasure" report lower levels of satisfaction towards life than people who disagree with such statements (Belk, 1985; Richins and Dawson, 1992). So, if materialists value the purchase of materials, can the purchase of materials bring them more happiness? The study by Millar and Thomas (2009) shows that materialism regulates the relationship between the type of purchase and happiness: materialists derive more pleasure from material purchases, but for experiential purchases, this does not affect not the level of relationship between materialism and happiness, that is, regardless of the level of materialism, experiential purchasing always brings more happiness than material purchasing (Zining & Maolin, 2015). In their 2003 research, Van Boven and Gilovich carried out 4 experiments which were the starting point for further research around this topic. First, they asked their respondents to think about their most recent experiential or material purchase made for more than $100 and rate how happy that purchase made them. Also with a following question, they asked how they felt about their purchase at that time. They were looking to determine if they value experiences more, do they also think experiences are better investments than material possessions. As they predicted, respondents asked to evaluate an experiential purchase reported a higher level of happiness derived from that purchase. They also reported that experiential purchases are seen as “money better spent” and material purchases as “money spent could be better spent elsewhere”. The results also showed them the general understanding of what is considered experiences and what is considered material purchases. There was very little overlap between the two types of purchase descriptions. In their second study, they wanted to expand the audience and examine the situation in different demographic groups. As a result, they indicated that stating that experiences make one happier than possessions is the rule, not the exception. That's not to say there weren't demographic differences: Women, younger people, and those living in urban or suburban communities were somewhat more likely to report that the experiences made them happier than women. men, the elderly and those living in rural communities. (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Then they looked at it over time, hypothesizing that remembering experiential purchases would make respondents happier than remembering material purchases. Respondents were asked to describe an experiential or material purchase and then come back after a week to read their description and think about their purchase once again. The results were as expected: those who felt like they remembered an experiential purchase reported higher levels of happiness than those who felt like they remembered a material purchase. Some researchers (e.g. Kahneman, 1999) recommend that measures of happiness incorporate not only the valence and intensity of feelings, but also the frequency with which individuals experience those feelings. The results of this experiment indicate that thinking about experiential purchases gives people more pleasure than thinking about material purchases; but do people also think more often about their experiential purchases (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003)? In the lightFrom this question, they made another experiment. This time, respondents were asked what purchase they thought about most often. "A clear majority (83%, 95% confidence interval (71% to 94%)) indicated that they 'mentally revisited' their experiential purchase more often than their material purchase. This suggests that thinking about experiences not only makes them Happier people than thinking about material possessions, they also think more often about their experiences” At this point, Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman (2009) introduced the well-known term hedonic treadmill happiness. which is driven by hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999), which refers to the decline of a hedonic response over time. Better things become worse over time, and worse things become better. also that the level of hedonic adaptation differs depending on the type of purchase (positive) suggests that people may tend to adapt more quickly to material purchases because experiential purchases (positive) remain open to positive reinterpretation. (Mitchell et al. 1997). This situation causes the happiness derived from previous experiential purchases to last longer than previous material purchases. This led them to further examine the nature of purchases. According to them, Van Boven and Gilovich's conclusions were only valid for positive purchases, but not for negative purchases. In their 2003 research, Van Boven and Gilovich asked respondents to describe a positive purchase they made recently. This time, Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman's questions were more neutral in terms of the valence of the results. The results were as expected: the experience recommendation held for positive purchases, as previous studies show. If the purchase did not prove positive, the effect did not last. Applying the model for negative purchases, there was no significant difference in happiness between experiential and material purchases (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). So, as a result, the study by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman (2009) proved again that positive experiential purchases lead to a higher level of happiness for consumers than positive material purchases, as did the study by Van Boven and Gilovich showed this in 2003. They also found that for negative purchases, the opposite is true: negative experiential purchases make consumers more unhappy than negative material purchases. Now, if we take a step back and continue to analyze positive purchases like Van Boven and Gilovich, we can see that behind the experience recommendation there are some reasons related to human nature. Van Boven and Gilovich explained that there are three main causes: experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation, they are more central to a person's identity, and they have greater social value. Following the research gathered around this diagram. We would like to discuss the causes of this situation through the theoretical explanation made by Zining and Ye in 2015. According to Zining and Ye (2015), the first theory to explain experience recommendation is the construct level theory (CLT) who pointed out that people's interpretation of events will change with the perception of the psychological distance of events such as temporal distance, spatial distance. When it comes to long-distance psychological events, people tend to use high-level interpretation, that is, characterizing an incident based on abstract, essential, and partial features; Regarding short distance eventspsychologically, people tend to use low-level interpretations, such as those of concrete, and surface features to characterize local events (Liberman and Trope, 1998). In short, as Van Boven and Gilovich's experiments confirm, as time distance increases, experiential purchase has a higher level of interpretation than material purchase and it becomes more beautiful, leaving consumers happy and joyful (Zining and Ye, 2015).Zining and Ye (2015) explained that experiences have closer contact with the self, as did Van Boven and Gilovich (2003). A person's life is the sum of their life experiences, such as going to school, getting married, having children, etc. A rich life experience creates a colorful life (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Studies also show that people are more likely to show up and talk about themselves through experiential purchases. They are also less willing to forget their experiences. Thus, the experience is closer to the individual's self-concept and self-definition (Dunn et al., 2011). An important reason why experiential purchasing is more enjoyable than material purchasing is that it is difficult to provoke social comparison, and also more resistant to adverse effects. social comparisons, which can reduce the negative effects of social comparison, thereby allowing people to achieve high levels of happiness (Carter & Gilovich, 2010, 2014). According to Zining and Ye (2015), there is an aspect of social comparison in experience recommendation. With the help of previous research, they discuss that experiences are less likely to provoke social comparison. Because they are personal and incapable of unifying the criteria of comparison. Compared to items, experience is more unique and its comparability is relatively low (Carter & Gilovich, 2010). Carter and Gilovich's (2010) study showed that if respondents were asked to imagine that another companion purchased the same product in a better condition and at the same price. In the scenario, one group of subjects purchased material goods and the other group made an experiential purchase. In the end, the group that made experiential purchases reported a higher level of happiness than the other. As we mentioned, because each person's experiences are unique, it is more difficult to provoke social comparison. Another study (Van Boven, 2005) also confirmed the above results, researchers let subjects imagine a disappointing experiential or material purchase, subjects who imagine the experiential purchase felt less regret and were more willing to adopt similar purchasing behavior in the future. According to self-determination theory (SDT), humans have three types of inherent basic psychological needs: the need for autonomy, competence needs, and relational needs (Déci and Ryan, 2000). Some researchers believe that the reason why more people feel happier than possessions, because the experience and the process itself have been subject to sociability, can increase the degree of interpersonal intimacy and is conducive to the individual development of successful social relationships (Carter and Gilovich, 2014; Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003), better promote one of the three types of fundamental psychological needs: the relational need (Zining & Ye, 2015). When it comes to people's psychological needs, experiences are easier to share and derive a positive social image for the individual. Compared to material purchase, experiential experience is easier to share with others, attracts the attention of others, thus promoting individual pleasure (Bastos, 2012; Van Boven et al.,2010). A final reason why experiences make people happier than possessions is that they are more pleasant to talk about and more effectively promote successful social relationships, which are closely associated with happiness (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2002). Hedonic Benefits of Experience and Material PurchasesWe human beings are social beings. We come into this world because of the actions of others. We survive here by depending on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a time in our lives when we do not benefit from the activities of others. For this reason, it is not surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Much previous research asserts that humans are highly social creatures (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). This characteristic of the human being affects his daily life by questioning his decisions. As we discussed earlier in this article, consumer behavior researchers have proven that experiences possess greater hedonic value than material possessions. Once again, we analyzed the causes of this experience recommendation. One of the main reasons behind this is that people value social relationships the most. In order to improve their interactions with other people, they often tend to share topics that help them build a positive social image. Communicating about ourselves or something that concerns us is an essential part of human nature and a pervasive behavior (Argo, White, and Dahl 2006; Berger and Schwartz 2011). At this point, some recent studies test and state that experiential purchases have a great impact on themselves. conversational value greater than material purchases. Conversational value is defined here as the likelihood that the consumer will talk about a purchase during a social interaction. Over time, a purchase with high conversational value is more often discussed than a purchase with low conversational value (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Researchers have highlighted the important role of conversational value in experience recommendation. They report that experiences differ from material possessions in certain respects: the self-narrative provided by proximity to the self, social approval, interest associated with uniqueness. Because of these notions, individuals believe that recounting their experiences can have a more positive impact on their social connections. Conversing with others also allows the narrator to gain support and confirmation (Gatignon & Robertson, 1986), helps the narrator learn (Bandura, 1977), and make sense of the shared topic (Finkenauer & Rime, 1998). , allows the narrator to rethink the subject. -experience the subject (Gable et al., 2004), and prolongs the duration of the positive effects of the subject (Verduyn & Van Mechelen & Tuerlinckx, 2011) (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). In order to scientifically prove their hypothesis, Bastos and Brucks (2017) did some experiments. In one, they asked subjects to imagine a first connection with a person. One group of subjects received a text indicating that they were highly motivated to create a social bond with each other (high relationship group). The second group was the control group, so they had a neutral text in terms of the relationship-motivation condition. The third group received a text saying that they were not interested in creating social connections with the other person (low connection group). The results showed that when people are motivated to create a social connection with another person, they naturally prefer to talk about it. an experience they had. If they are not encouraged to create a social bond, theybecome indifferent between telling a good or an experience. Participants in the control conditions who chose to share about an item motivated their choice primarily on the ease of thinking of something to say about the purchase (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Kumar and Gilovich (2015) introduced hedonic adaptation into purchase importance research. conversational value. Experiences may suffer less from adaptation, in part because they are more likely to elicit, and in turn be enriched by, conversation and storytelling (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Talking to others also allows us to relive experiences long after they happened. In this sense, experiential purchases are gifts that keep on giving (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). They also indicate that people are inclined to “improve” their stories by telling the most interesting parts, sometimes even distorting the experience a bit. Because experiences are more tied to people's identities, people are also more likely to distort their experiences in the service of maintaining self-esteem and self-enhancement (Dunning, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988). In order to prove their hypothesis, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) carried out some tests. In one of their experiments, they tested what would happen to subjects' happiness levels if they were unable to talk about a purchase after it was made. What would be more upsetting, not being able to talk about a material or experiential purchase? As a result, experiential and material purchases did not differ in price, but did differ in how inconvenient it would be to not be able to talk about them (Kumar & Gilovitch, 2015). Respondents said it would bother them more not being able to talk about their experience than not being able to talk about their material possessions. This proves that conversational value is important to the hedonic benefits derived from a purchase and also that experiential purchases have greater storytelling utility than possessions. In another study, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) examined the real situation in a laboratory environment. This time, subjects were asked to come to the laboratory individually and list 10 of their purchases (5 experiential purchases and 5 material purchases). Then they were asked to record a video and recount each of their purchases that they had listed. In doing so, they would be willing to talk about each of them in detail. They were then asked to talk about a single purchase they had listed. The results were as expected: in the video, participants marginally discussed their experiential purchases rather than their material purchases. Additionally, when asked to choose a single purchase to talk about, 80% of participants chose to talk about an experience. People are therefore more likely to choose an experiential purchase to talk about, even when several different material and experiential purchases of each type are readily available as potential topics of conversation (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). A very similar experiment carried out by Bastos and Brucks (2017). This time, the researchers asked 113students to think of two recent purchases they made for each type of purchase; experiential and material and to write them down. Next, students were asked to choose one of their purchases that they had listed to discuss with another person. This experiment demonstrates that when it comes to purchase-related conversations, people systematically prefer to talk about a lived experience rather than a material object they own. The fact that almost three quarters ofthe sample from Experiment 3 (i.e. 73%) selected an experience to share indicates the higher conversational value of experiences compared to that of objects (Bastos & Brucks, 2017).Yamaguchi et al. (2015), tested the relationship between purchases and their influence on social relations. They surveyed 1,523 Japanese students about their summer vacation purchases and their happiness levels after the vacation. Results show that students who made an experiential purchase during the break reported higher levels of happiness than those who purchased luxury materials. They also explained their happiness level from the social relationships window. Thus, according to this study, students place more value on their experiences since they strengthen students' social bonds more than material goods. Making an experiential purchase contributed to respondents' greater happiness by positively influencing their social relationships (Yamaguchi et al., 2015). Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on social media sharing, liking, commenting, or even stalking. Social networking sites have become the main site for creating and maintaining social ties. To gain a deeper insight into experience recommendation and conversational value, Lin et al. (2018) examined the effects of experience recommendation on social networking sites. They studied further to see if such an effect also exists on social media. Researchers have hypothesized that sharing posts about experiential purchases is more likely to increase liking than sharing material purchases (Lin et al., 2018). They prepared an online survey that showed participants an item with an experiential purchase made for $55 or with a physical purchase made for the same amount. Then, they asked the participants several questions. To measure desire, comparability, self-relevance and experience recommendation effects. They asked “does this person’s message make you like them more or less?” measure the effects of such a recommendation. They found that participants liked someone who posted about an experiential purchase more than someone who posted about a hardware purchase (Lin et al., 2018). The results also show that participants like the person who posts about a hardware purchase less than before.ConclusionWe discussed experience recommendation using previous research and studies. We have seen that people derive more hedonic value from experiences than from material goods. We then analyzed in more detail what underlies the differential hedonic benefits of experiential and material purchases. The connection we feel with those who have made the same experiential purchase tends to be stronger than the connection we feel with those who have made the same material purchase (Gilovich & Kumar & Jampol, 2014). Because people are more likely to talk about their experiences than their possessions. Previous work demonstrates how factors that differ between material and experiential purchases—self-proximity, social approval, and the uniqueness of the purchase—help explain why experiences have higher conversational value than objects ( Bastos and Brucks, 2017). They therefore have greater narrative utility for the consumer, even after purchases have been made. Although our material possessions “disappear” out of habit, our experiential purchases live on in the memories we cherish and, as we have shown here, in the stories we tell (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Works Cited Argo, JJ, White, K., and, 17(3), 295-318.

Essay / Material possessions and experiential purchases for happiness By analyzing numerous studies and experiments of consumer behavior researchers, it aims to explain the author's main hypothesis: happiness derived from experiences is greater than happiness obtained through material possessions. Furthermore, the conversational value of experiential purchases is higher than that of material purchases and this is one of the reasons why individuals derive more hedonic benefits from their experiences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIntroductionOur lives are filled with decisions we must make to make our own lives “better” on our own terms. One of the most complex and difficult decisions is how to spend our money. How much to save each month and how much to spend on our not-so-basic needs like a new stereo. This has been one of the biggest dichotomies in people's daily lives. There is a desire to be happier that underlies every decision individuals make. People's lives can be enriched by redirecting spending from things that provide fleeting joy to those that make a more substantial and lasting contribution to well-being (Gilovich & Kumar & Jampol, 2014). When considering the transformation of consumers through purchasing (Mick 2006), it makes sense to consider not only what leads to consumer downfall (debt, addiction, etc.), but also what leads to a particularly happy (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). In this article, we will explore the world of expenses and their nature. Because there are other decisions to make even after overcoming the biggest dichotomy. Yes, you will spend money. As Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) say, would you rather “do” something with that money, like go on a ski trip, or “have” something or things like shiny new jewelry or t-shirts? of creators. I will investigate more deeply what underlies people's decisions regarding material possessions and experiences. Previous studies show that happiness derived from experiences is greater than happiness obtained through material possessions. This leads us to examine the possible incentives that dominate these results. One of the reasons most put forward according to researchers is the value of the positive social impact generated by a positive experience. As Bastos and Brucks (2017) report, conversations about experiences are thought to be more likely to promote social connections. In other words, a trip to the Himalayas or a famous Broadway show is more worth telling others about than a new piece of Italian furniture and will project a positive social image. After discussing previous research on the role of spending in the search for happiness, we will analyze the two types of purchases. Finally, we can draw attention to the differential utility of stories derived from purchases. Link between material possessions and happiness According to consumer behavior researchers, there are two types of goods for which consumers project different gains from obtaining them. By acquiring hedonic goods, consumers aim for pleasure. However, utilitarian goods are those acquired with the intention of achieving practical purposes. THEConsumer choices are motivated by utilitarian and hedonic considerations. Consumers choosing a new automobile, for example, may care about utilitarian attributes (e.g., gas mileage) as well as hedonic attributes (e.g., sporty design) (Dhar and Wertenboch, 2000). According to Strahilevitz and Myers (1998), hedonic and pleasure-oriented consumption is primarily driven by the desire for sensual pleasure, fantasy, and pleasure (e.g., a week in the Bahamas). In Western culture, these products are often described as “frivolous” or “decadent”. Utilitarian and targeted consumption is motivated mainly by the desire to meet a fundamental need or to accomplish a functional task (e.g.: consuming a bottle of dishwashing liquid or a box of trash bags). In Western culture, these products are often referred to as “convenient” or “necessary.” This is one of the famous dichotomies that inspired Van Boven and Gilovich in 2003 to take a deeper look at shopping happiness. The second distinction concerned consumer motivations. Extrinsic goals, which “depend on the contingent reactions of others,” and intrinsic goals, express “desires consistent with humans’ natural self-actualizing and growth tendencies” (Kasser and Ryan, 1996, p. 280). Of course, these distinctions are not precise because it is still difficult to identify consumer goods and goals as hedonic or utilitarian and extrinsic or intrinsic. However, they made sense and proved useful to consumer behavior researchers. Experiential Possessions vs. Material Possessions There has been an ongoing debate around discretionary income and where and how to spend it. From an early age, philosophers, economists and psychologists have expressed their opinions on this issue. Aristotle (4th century BC) observed that “…men imagine that external goods are the cause of happiness” but asserted that “leisure in itself gives pleasure, happiness and enjoyment in life” (trans. 1996, pp. 185 and 197). As we move closer to the present day, with Hume (1737/1975) and Scitovsky (1976) and Frank (1985), the feeling is that individuals will be happier if they spend their money on experiences (e.g., theater, concerts, and vacations) as opposed to material purchases (e.g., luxury cars, larger homes, and gadgets) (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). They all said that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases. But until Van Boven and Gilovich's research in 2003, there was no empirical test of this so-called experiment recommendation made by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman in 2009. According to Van Boven and Gilovich, it was difficult to distinguish clearly the purchases considered. as experiential and who as material. Almost everyone considers a hike in the Himalayas an experience and a new Patek-Phillipe watch a possession. But what about a flat-screen television or an automobile? Are these goods or vehicles for experiences? (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Using their experiences and the usefulness of the general distinction, they indicated that experiential purchases are those made with the primary intention of gaining a life experience: an event or series of events that the 'we live. Material purchases are those made with the primary intention of acquiring a material good: a tangible object that is kept in one's possession. Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) claimed that materialistic people tend to report lower subjective well-being than non-materialistic people.materialists. People who strongly agree with statements such as "Some of the most important achievements in life include acquiring material goods" and "Buying things give me a lot of pleasure" report lower levels of satisfaction towards life than people who disagree with such statements (Belk, 1985; Richins and Dawson, 1992). So, if materialists value the purchase of materials, can the purchase of materials bring them more happiness? The study by Millar and Thomas (2009) shows that materialism regulates the relationship between the type of purchase and happiness: materialists derive more pleasure from material purchases, but for experiential purchases, this does not affect not the level of relationship between materialism and happiness, that is, regardless of the level of materialism, experiential purchasing always brings more happiness than material purchasing (Zining & Maolin, 2015). In their 2003 research, Van Boven and Gilovich carried out 4 experiments which were the starting point for further research around this topic. First, they asked their respondents to think about their most recent experiential or material purchase made for more than $100 and rate how happy that purchase made them. Also with a following question, they asked how they felt about their purchase at that time. They were looking to determine if they value experiences more, do they also think experiences are better investments than material possessions. As they predicted, respondents asked to evaluate an experiential purchase reported a higher level of happiness derived from that purchase. They also reported that experiential purchases are seen as “money better spent” and material purchases as “money spent could be better spent elsewhere”. The results also showed them the general understanding of what is considered experiences and what is considered material purchases. There was very little overlap between the two types of purchase descriptions. In their second study, they wanted to expand the audience and examine the situation in different demographic groups. As a result, they indicated that stating that experiences make one happier than possessions is the rule, not the exception. That's not to say there weren't demographic differences: Women, younger people, and those living in urban or suburban communities were somewhat more likely to report that the experiences made them happier than women. men, the elderly and those living in rural communities. (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Then they looked at it over time, hypothesizing that remembering experiential purchases would make respondents happier than remembering material purchases. Respondents were asked to describe an experiential or material purchase and then come back after a week to read their description and think about their purchase once again. The results were as expected: those who felt like they remembered an experiential purchase reported higher levels of happiness than those who felt like they remembered a material purchase. Some researchers (e.g. Kahneman, 1999) recommend that measures of happiness incorporate not only the valence and intensity of feelings, but also the frequency with which individuals experience those feelings. The results of this experiment indicate that thinking about experiential purchases gives people more pleasure than thinking about material purchases; but do people also think more often about their experiential purchases (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003)? In the lightFrom this question, they made another experiment. This time, respondents were asked what purchase they thought about most often. "A clear majority (83%, 95% confidence interval (71% to 94%)) indicated that they 'mentally revisited' their experiential purchase more often than their material purchase. This suggests that thinking about experiences not only makes them Happier people than thinking about material possessions, they also think more often about their experiences” At this point, Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman (2009) introduced the well-known term hedonic treadmill happiness. which is driven by hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999), which refers to the decline of a hedonic response over time. Better things become worse over time, and worse things become better. also that the level of hedonic adaptation differs depending on the type of purchase (positive) suggests that people may tend to adapt more quickly to material purchases because experiential purchases (positive) remain open to positive reinterpretation. (Mitchell et al. 1997). This situation causes the happiness derived from previous experiential purchases to last longer than previous material purchases. This led them to further examine the nature of purchases. According to them, Van Boven and Gilovich's conclusions were only valid for positive purchases, but not for negative purchases. In their 2003 research, Van Boven and Gilovich asked respondents to describe a positive purchase they made recently. This time, Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman's questions were more neutral in terms of the valence of the results. The results were as expected: the experience recommendation held for positive purchases, as previous studies show. If the purchase did not prove positive, the effect did not last. Applying the model for negative purchases, there was no significant difference in happiness between experiential and material purchases (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). So, as a result, the study by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman (2009) proved again that positive experiential purchases lead to a higher level of happiness for consumers than positive material purchases, as did the study by Van Boven and Gilovich showed this in 2003. They also found that for negative purchases, the opposite is true: negative experiential purchases make consumers more unhappy than negative material purchases. Now, if we take a step back and continue to analyze positive purchases like Van Boven and Gilovich, we can see that behind the experience recommendation there are some reasons related to human nature. Van Boven and Gilovich explained that there are three main causes: experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation, they are more central to a person's identity, and they have greater social value. Following the research gathered around this diagram. We would like to discuss the causes of this situation through the theoretical explanation made by Zining and Ye in 2015. According to Zining and Ye (2015), the first theory to explain experience recommendation is the construct level theory (CLT) who pointed out that people's interpretation of events will change with the perception of the psychological distance of events such as temporal distance, spatial distance. When it comes to long-distance psychological events, people tend to use high-level interpretation, that is, characterizing an incident based on abstract, essential, and partial features; Regarding short distance eventspsychologically, people tend to use low-level interpretations, such as those of concrete, and surface features to characterize local events (Liberman and Trope, 1998). In short, as Van Boven and Gilovich's experiments confirm, as time distance increases, experiential purchase has a higher level of interpretation than material purchase and it becomes more beautiful, leaving consumers happy and joyful (Zining and Ye, 2015).Zining and Ye (2015) explained that experiences have closer contact with the self, as did Van Boven and Gilovich (2003). A person's life is the sum of their life experiences, such as going to school, getting married, having children, etc. A rich life experience creates a colorful life (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). Studies also show that people are more likely to show up and talk about themselves through experiential purchases. They are also less willing to forget their experiences. Thus, the experience is closer to the individual's self-concept and self-definition (Dunn et al., 2011). An important reason why experiential purchasing is more enjoyable than material purchasing is that it is difficult to provoke social comparison, and also more resistant to adverse effects. social comparisons, which can reduce the negative effects of social comparison, thereby allowing people to achieve high levels of happiness (Carter & Gilovich, 2010, 2014). According to Zining and Ye (2015), there is an aspect of social comparison in experience recommendation. With the help of previous research, they discuss that experiences are less likely to provoke social comparison. Because they are personal and incapable of unifying the criteria of comparison. Compared to items, experience is more unique and its comparability is relatively low (Carter & Gilovich, 2010). Carter and Gilovich's (2010) study showed that if respondents were asked to imagine that another companion purchased the same product in a better condition and at the same price. In the scenario, one group of subjects purchased material goods and the other group made an experiential purchase. In the end, the group that made experiential purchases reported a higher level of happiness than the other. As we mentioned, because each person's experiences are unique, it is more difficult to provoke social comparison. Another study (Van Boven, 2005) also confirmed the above results, researchers let subjects imagine a disappointing experiential or material purchase, subjects who imagine the experiential purchase felt less regret and were more willing to adopt similar purchasing behavior in the future. According to self-determination theory (SDT), humans have three types of inherent basic psychological needs: the need for autonomy, competence needs, and relational needs (Déci and Ryan, 2000). Some researchers believe that the reason why more people feel happier than possessions, because the experience and the process itself have been subject to sociability, can increase the degree of interpersonal intimacy and is conducive to the individual development of successful social relationships (Carter and Gilovich, 2014; Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003), better promote one of the three types of fundamental psychological needs: the relational need (Zining & Ye, 2015). When it comes to people's psychological needs, experiences are easier to share and derive a positive social image for the individual. Compared to material purchase, experiential experience is easier to share with others, attracts the attention of others, thus promoting individual pleasure (Bastos, 2012; Van Boven et al.,2010). A final reason why experiences make people happier than possessions is that they are more pleasant to talk about and more effectively promote successful social relationships, which are closely associated with happiness (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2002). Hedonic Benefits of Experience and Material PurchasesWe human beings are social beings. We come into this world because of the actions of others. We survive here by depending on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a time in our lives when we do not benefit from the activities of others. For this reason, it is not surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Much previous research asserts that humans are highly social creatures (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). This characteristic of the human being affects his daily life by questioning his decisions. As we discussed earlier in this article, consumer behavior researchers have proven that experiences possess greater hedonic value than material possessions. Once again, we analyzed the causes of this experience recommendation. One of the main reasons behind this is that people value social relationships the most. In order to improve their interactions with other people, they often tend to share topics that help them build a positive social image. Communicating about ourselves or something that concerns us is an essential part of human nature and a pervasive behavior (Argo, White, and Dahl 2006; Berger and Schwartz 2011). At this point, some recent studies test and state that experiential purchases have a great impact on themselves. conversational value greater than material purchases. Conversational value is defined here as the likelihood that the consumer will talk about a purchase during a social interaction. Over time, a purchase with high conversational value is more often discussed than a purchase with low conversational value (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Researchers have highlighted the important role of conversational value in experience recommendation. They report that experiences differ from material possessions in certain respects: the self-narrative provided by proximity to the self, social approval, interest associated with uniqueness. Because of these notions, individuals believe that recounting their experiences can have a more positive impact on their social connections. Conversing with others also allows the narrator to gain support and confirmation (Gatignon & Robertson, 1986), helps the narrator learn (Bandura, 1977), and make sense of the shared topic (Finkenauer & Rime, 1998). , allows the narrator to rethink the subject. -experience the subject (Gable et al., 2004), and prolongs the duration of the positive effects of the subject (Verduyn & Van Mechelen & Tuerlinckx, 2011) (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). In order to scientifically prove their hypothesis, Bastos and Brucks (2017) did some experiments. In one, they asked subjects to imagine a first connection with a person. One group of subjects received a text indicating that they were highly motivated to create a social bond with each other (high relationship group). The second group was the control group, so they had a neutral text in terms of the relationship-motivation condition. The third group received a text saying that they were not interested in creating social connections with the other person (low connection group). The results showed that when people are motivated to create a social connection with another person, they naturally prefer to talk about it. an experience they had. If they are not encouraged to create a social bond, theybecome indifferent between telling a good or an experience. Participants in the control conditions who chose to share about an item motivated their choice primarily on the ease of thinking of something to say about the purchase (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Kumar and Gilovich (2015) introduced hedonic adaptation into purchase importance research. conversational value. Experiences may suffer less from adaptation, in part because they are more likely to elicit, and in turn be enriched by, conversation and storytelling (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Talking to others also allows us to relive experiences long after they happened. In this sense, experiential purchases are gifts that keep on giving (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). They also indicate that people are inclined to “improve” their stories by telling the most interesting parts, sometimes even distorting the experience a bit. Because experiences are more tied to people's identities, people are also more likely to distort their experiences in the service of maintaining self-esteem and self-enhancement (Dunning, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988). In order to prove their hypothesis, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) carried out some tests. In one of their experiments, they tested what would happen to subjects' happiness levels if they were unable to talk about a purchase after it was made. What would be more upsetting, not being able to talk about a material or experiential purchase? As a result, experiential and material purchases did not differ in price, but did differ in how inconvenient it would be to not be able to talk about them (Kumar & Gilovitch, 2015). Respondents said it would bother them more not being able to talk about their experience than not being able to talk about their material possessions. This proves that conversational value is important to the hedonic benefits derived from a purchase and also that experiential purchases have greater storytelling utility than possessions. In another study, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) examined the real situation in a laboratory environment. This time, subjects were asked to come to the laboratory individually and list 10 of their purchases (5 experiential purchases and 5 material purchases). Then they were asked to record a video and recount each of their purchases that they had listed. In doing so, they would be willing to talk about each of them in detail. They were then asked to talk about a single purchase they had listed. The results were as expected: in the video, participants marginally discussed their experiential purchases rather than their material purchases. Additionally, when asked to choose a single purchase to talk about, 80% of participants chose to talk about an experience. People are therefore more likely to choose an experiential purchase to talk about, even when several different material and experiential purchases of each type are readily available as potential topics of conversation (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). A very similar experiment carried out by Bastos and Brucks (2017). This time, the researchers asked 113students to think of two recent purchases they made for each type of purchase; experiential and material and to write them down. Next, students were asked to choose one of their purchases that they had listed to discuss with another person. This experiment demonstrates that when it comes to purchase-related conversations, people systematically prefer to talk about a lived experience rather than a material object they own. The fact that almost three quarters ofthe sample from Experiment 3 (i.e. 73%) selected an experience to share indicates the higher conversational value of experiences compared to that of objects (Bastos & Brucks, 2017).Yamaguchi et al. (2015), tested the relationship between purchases and their influence on social relations. They surveyed 1,523 Japanese students about their summer vacation purchases and their happiness levels after the vacation. Results show that students who made an experiential purchase during the break reported higher levels of happiness than those who purchased luxury materials. They also explained their happiness level from the social relationships window. Thus, according to this study, students place more value on their experiences since they strengthen students' social bonds more than material goods. Making an experiential purchase contributed to respondents' greater happiness by positively influencing their social relationships (Yamaguchi et al., 2015). Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on social media sharing, liking, commenting, or even stalking. Social networking sites have become the main site for creating and maintaining social ties. To gain a deeper insight into experience recommendation and conversational value, Lin et al. (2018) examined the effects of experience recommendation on social networking sites. They studied further to see if such an effect also exists on social media. Researchers have hypothesized that sharing posts about experiential purchases is more likely to increase liking than sharing material purchases (Lin et al., 2018). They prepared an online survey that showed participants an item with an experiential purchase made for $55 or with a physical purchase made for the same amount. Then, they asked the participants several questions. To measure desire, comparability, self-relevance and experience recommendation effects. They asked “does this person’s message make you like them more or less?” measure the effects of such a recommendation. They found that participants liked someone who posted about an experiential purchase more than someone who posted about a hardware purchase (Lin et al., 2018). The results also show that participants like the person who posts about a hardware purchase less than before.ConclusionWe discussed experience recommendation using previous research and studies. We have seen that people derive more hedonic value from experiences than from material goods. We then analyzed in more detail what underlies the differential hedonic benefits of experiential and material purchases. The connection we feel with those who have made the same experiential purchase tends to be stronger than the connection we feel with those who have made the same material purchase (Gilovich & Kumar & Jampol, 2014). Because people are more likely to talk about their experiences than their possessions. Previous work demonstrates how factors that differ between material and experiential purchases—self-proximity, social approval, and the uniqueness of the purchase—help explain why experiences have higher conversational value than objects ( Bastos and Brucks, 2017). They therefore have greater narrative utility for the consumer, even after purchases have been made. Although our material possessions “disappear” out of habit, our experiential purchases live on in the memories we cherish and, as we have shown here, in the stories we tell (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Works Cited Argo, JJ, White, K., and, 17(3), 295-318.

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